On its surface, it had all the makings of a run-of-the-mill publicity event. A successful, major-league hockey team invited local, chronically ill children to a game, and then to a meet-and-greet with the players. All the kids’ favorites were present. The players brought the children and their parents into the locker room for photos and autographs. Then team management gave a speech for the cameras and announced that all proceeds of a friendly match between the team and a nearby rival would go toward a charity benefiting the children’s medical treatment.

All that industrial production comes, however, at a massive environmental cost. According to Anna Rozhkova, a lecturer at Magnitogorsk State University and head of the environmental group EkoMagnitka, only one in 20 of the city’s children is considered healthy. Rozhkova laid the blame for the poor health of the city’s children on the environmental conditions in and around Magnitogorsk, which she attributed specifically to MMK’s sprawling factories.

For a company to use the medical conditions of its own employees’ children as the basis for a PR stunt would be questionable enough on its own. That those conditions are likely caused by MMK itself made this display of false charity deeply disturbing.